Spring Optimism

Well, maybe. We have lots of reasons to appreciate the arrival of Spring over the weekend, but one or two clouds about as well. There is lots of good news and progress, even if the latter is not as fast as we would like. First of all, we have made an offer to Wadworth for the purchase of the Peterborough Arms at Dauntsey Lock. They have accepted it subject to us guaranteeing an early completion, which we feel unable to do, so they have felt obliged to put it back on the market. We are continuing with the process despite that. Kath Hatton and I took the opportunity of a fine day last week to go and visit the Wey and Arun Canal Trust. They have a very active canal restoration under way, and we wanted to see what we could learn, what we had in common, and what they do differently. In terms of things in common, there were lots of similarities; they too have landowner issues, and not enough money (of course). Their group of active volunteers is perhaps a little larger than ours, in proportion to their membership. We were interested to learn how they organise themselves differently; their canal is much shorter than ours, so there is no branch structure, and they seem to organise themselves round themes rather than geographically. They also seem to have a good track record in attracting sponsorship to pay for things like vehicles and plant hire. They have focused their efforts at Loxwood, where there is a busy pub by a main road, a trip boat operation, and a modern visitor centre. In the meantime we make progress on other projects and fronts, but more of that another time. Chris Coyle